Employment benefits during adoption leave

This guidance was last updated on

January 2015

During the whole period of adoption leave the employee is entitled to receive all their contractual benefits with the exception of remuneration. This includes all non-cash benefits such as childcare vouchers.

Annual Leave

Contractual annual leave (including bank holidays and fixed closure days) will accrue throughout the full 52 weeks of adoption leave.

Departments may wish to ask employees to take any accrued annual leave prior to their adoption leave. Departments may also ask that an employee takes at least 28 days' annual leave (the annual statutory holiday requirement) before they go on adoption leave if they will not return to work before the end of the current leave year. In the event that an adoption leave period crosses over two annual leave years, the employing department may ask an employee returning to work to use up the balance of their annual leave from the leave year that has ended at the end of their adoption leave period. It is not possible for an employee to take annual leave at the same time as adoption leave. This will assist departments in managing the larger amounts of annual leave that will be accrued during adoption leave.

However, departments retain the right to make annual leave arrangements with their employees to fit in with operational requirements. Employees must agree when they will take annual leave in advance with their department, and they may wish to consider retaining some of their annual leave to allow them to take time off as required to look after their children should they be ill, or need some additional support whilst settling into a nursery or with new childcarers. It should be clarified to the employee early on that whilst a small amount of paid leave is available to staff for dealing with domestic emergencies, this is not intended to cover foreseeable domestic problems such those outlined above, and in most cases it would be anticipated that annual leave would be used to cover such circumstances.

If an employee wishes to take annual leave at the end of their adoption leave period, they are deemed to have returned to work at the notified date and then they may take their annual leave as agreed with their department.

Pensions

When an employee is on adoption leave, their normal employee contributions to their pension will continue to be deducted at the appropriate rate while they are on full pay and when they are on SAP. The University will also continue to make its contributions at the appropriate rate. When the employee is on zero pay, no contributions are payable by either them or the University.

If, when an employee returns to work, they would like to make up the pensions contributions that they did not pay because they were on reduced or zero pay during adoption leave, the employee may do so. The Pensions Office will be able to advise the employee on their individual situation.

Sickness during/at the end of adoption leave

The University follows the same rules as are applied to statutory payments and sick pay cannot be claimed at the same time as adoption pay. Employees are therefore disqualified from receiving sick pay until the period of paid adoption pay has ended.

If an employee comes to the end of adoption leave and is too ill to return to work (for any reason), they should still notify the department in the normal way that they wish to return to work. If an employee remains too ill to return to work after the date on which they were intending to return to work, they must provide the department with a medical certificate and should be treated as though they had returned to work and were absent from work due to sickness.